Peter Kuper: Kafkaesque (with Jeremy Dauber)

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Buy a copy of Kafkaesque or a $15 gift card in-store at the event to attend. This event will take place in the Rare Book Room, located on the 3rd floor of the Strand and accessible via the stairs or elevator next door at 826 Broadway.

Long fascinated with the work of Franz Kafka, Peter Kuper began illustrating his stories in 1988. Initially drawn to the master’s dark humor, Kuper adapted the stories over the years to plumb their deeper truths. Kuper’s style deliberately evokes Lynd Ward and Frans Masereel, contemporaries of Kafka whose wordless novels captured much of the same claustrophobia and mania as Kafka’s tales. Working from new translations of the classic texts, Kuper has reimagined these iconic stories for the twenty-first century, using setting and perspective to comment on contemporary issues like civil rights and homelessness. Longtime lovers of Kafka will appreciate Kuper’s innovative interpretations, while Kafka novices will discover a haunting introduction to some of the great writer’s most beguiling stories, including “A Hunger Artist,” “In The Penal Colony,” and “The Burrow.” Kafkaesque stands somewhere between adaptation and wholly original creation, going beyond a simple illustration of Kafka’s words to become a stunning work of art.

Join us in the Rare Book Room as Peter discusses his new graphic novel with Jeremy Dauber, Columbia University's Atran Professor of Yiddish Language, Literature, and Culture and author of the "groundbreaking" study Jewish Comedy: A Serious History.